1984 Grey Cup game

[kelownabomberfan]

I received a DVD of the 1984 Grey Cup game from Mrs. KBF for Christmas and I have now watched it again - it's nice to watch it without the ESPN Classic edits, as you get to see how Huffer came in in the first half and reversed the momentum that Hamilton had going and moved the team down the field with a nice drive to get a FG and keep the Bombers in the game while Clements got his head together. If Huffer hadn't come in and calmed the entire team down with a nice long drive, who knows what could have happened.

Anyone else have the 1984 game on DVD? Well worth watching, as of course, the Bombers were awesome, and it does the heart good to see that, given how much suffering we've endured in the past few years/decades. A few comments:

- Bombers linebackers back then were awesome. Tyrone Jones was just nuts - if an OL fell asleep and missed him on the rush, he was gone and on top of the QB before you could say Odell Willis.

- Joe Pop - just wow. That guy had hands like a vacuum cleaner. Just caught everything thrown his way.

- Clements - what a difference a QB makes to a team, especially a mobile one that could throw accurately on the run.

- Bomber receivers - we seemed to run exclusively a four receiver set with a running back and full back on the field, no five receiver sets that I could see. Still somehow James Murphy and Jeff Boyd were open all of the time. And of course, Joe Pop and Rick House at the slotback position, just amazing how those guys could get open.

- Bomber secondary - nothing flashy - with the pressure that the front three plus Jones were getting on Brock in the last three quarters, Dieter was crapping his pants and making bad throws, so the secondary just had to make sure not to give up the big plays. Sure helped to have a lot of experience with David Shaw and Ken Hailey back there.

Other changes to broadcasts that have occurred in the past 30 years:

- it's sure nice to have a first down line now. I could never tell how close the Bombers were to getting a first down as you couldn't see the sticks and there was no yellow line on the screen to help.

- Real time interviews with players on the sidelines during the game - that was weird! I had to feel bad for the Hamilton players being interviewed on the sidelines in the 4th quarter when they were getting pummeled, and the interviewer is asking them "what went wrong" - come on man!

- There were a lot of blown calls that would have been reviewed and over-turned in 2013, that were just shrugged off given there was no chance to complain back then - you just accepted the call and lined up. One blatant blown call was when a Hamilton player grabbed Clements and forced him down to one knee, then Clements got up and threw a long strike to Joe Pop. That would have been over-turned in this day and age. It made me see how the review process we have now is actually making the game better.

- Was it my imagination or did punters stand at least five yards further back from the line of scrimmage back then than they do now? Ruoff and Cameron looked like they were in another time zone when they were standing back there to punt.

[saskbluefan]

Lucky you.  I would love to get ahold of the '84 West Final.

[Mike]

How would you like to burn me a copy in exchange for the ability to ban one member of your choice from not only this site, but the internet in general?

 

Just kidding.

 

How would you like to burn me a copy in exchange for nothing of any value whatsoever other than the cost of postage and a blank DVD?

[kelownabomberfan]

How would you like to burn me a copy in exchange for the ability to ban one member of your choice from not only this site, but the internet in general?

 

Just kidding.

 

How would you like to burn me a copy in exchange for nothing of any value whatsoever other than the cost of postage and a blank DVD?

I'll see what I can do.

The guy I got it from left a lot of the ads from 1984 on the DVD too - talk about cheese-ball commercials and horrible graphics! But totally funny! Man has advertising come a long way in the past 30 years. I hope those hairstyles never come back, just plain horrible.

[johnzo]

I was amazed that any DB could cover anyone on that day.  The field was so icy that everyone was running in slow motion. You look at the dome cups like 83 and 87 and 89, they're lightning-fast compared to that game. 

 

Our offensive gameplan was perfect, we let the receivers draw everyone deep and then dropped it off to Kehoe or Cantner in the flat.  We ran that play over and over and Hamilton couldn't cover it.  They were keeping people in the box to defend against Reaves and lateral pursuit was super hard on that terrible field anyway.  

 

I think that 68-7 game twelve years later was Commonwealth's revenge for our '84 Grey Cup win.

 

The biggest thing, scheme-wise, that I notice when I watch it is that there were very few (if any?) shotgun formations.  Everything was under center with the quarterbacks doing long drops. Lots of QB footwork there you just don't see today.

[kelownabomberfan]

I was amazed that any DB could cover anyone on that day.  The field was so icy that everyone was running in slow motion. You look at the dome cups like 83 and 87 and 89, they're lightning-fast compared to that game. 

 

Our offensive gameplan was perfect, we let the receivers draw everyone deep and then dropped it off to Kehoe or Cantner in the flat.  We ran that play over and over and Hamilton couldn't cover it.  They were keeping people in the box to defend against Reaves and lateral pursuit was super hard on that terrible field anyway.  

 

I think that 68-7 game twelve years later was Commonwealth's revenge for our '84 Grey Cup win.

 

The biggest thing, scheme-wise, that I notice when I watch it is that there were very few (if any?) shotgun formations.  Everything was under center with the quarterbacks doing long drops. Lots of QB footwork there you just don't see today.

Yeah there were a lot of three step drop-backs and throws out to the flat, to Reaves, Kehoe, Cantner you name it. Hamilton was eaten alive on those plays. Then in the second half when Hamilton adjusted for the swing pass Clements started hitting Boyd and Murphy for long bombs. The last TD of the game thrown by Huffer in the last few minutes was beautiful too, Huffer just stood there for what seemed 10 whole seconds while the Oline just demolished the dead tired Hamilton D Line, then he fired a laser beam into Jeff Boyd's midriff. Huffer wasn't very mobile, but he was deadly accurate.

[Brandon]

A torrent would also be good